The popularization of sequence stratigraphy in recent years has led to a greater understanding of the temporal relationships of shallow marine strata. The application of these concepts to continental deposits has thus far met with limited success, particularly where thick successions of continental strata do not interfinger with marine strata (Shanley and McCabe, 1994). In light of this, the recent claim by McLaurin and Steel (2000), to have identified five fourth-order sequences within the muddy, nonmarine to marginal marine succession of the middle Castlegate Formation in the Book Cliffs, Utah, is potentially significant. However, we have several...